Holy Krishna!
by FullOfHunger
Summary: As a wandering girl who insists on training for the Games all by herself, the ruthless Krishna can't keep a lid on her language and still manages to turn the Games on their head.


**Summary: As a wandering girl who insists on training for the Games all by herself, the ruthless Krishna who can't keep a lid on her language manages to turn the Games on their head.**

**A note before we start: The Krishna in this story is not a male Hindu god. Sorry.**

* * *

This is my moment, the one I've spent every single year of my life waiting and training for. I'm nervous, which feels weird for me, but this is what I want to do, and I know it. I own it. I volunteer.

* * *

"And what is your name, dear?" the escort asks.

"Krishna," I answer. What? I already told her my name. She _can't_ be that stupid.

"No no, your full name, dear."

I wish she'd stop calling me dear. "Krishna."

She looks at me disapprovingly. "Yes, your name is Krishna, dear. But dear, don't you have a last name you'd like to share with us? Dear?"

She _is_ that stupid, apparently. "I have one name. That name is Krishna. There are over fifty slips of paper in that reaping bowl that just say 'Krishna.' Is that an effing problem?" Except I don't say effing.

The escort looks dubiously at the glass Reaping ball.

"Look. I volunteered for the Hunger Games. I didn't do it for the little kid who got reaped-"

"Hey, I'm not that little!" someone shouts.

"-I did it because I've trained my entire life to do so. Now, you probably understand I could kill you a dozen different ways without taking a step, so I suggest you shut your face and look me up in the log of citizens later or something later, kapeesh?"

The escort has gone rather white. I take the moment to snatch her microphone. This is going to make her despise me, but I'm sure the Gamemakers will be watching.

"She says thank you all for coming, but we've got tributes so you can all get the hell out now. Ciao."  
I look over at the escort. "Oh, and may the odds be ever in your favor. And mine. And his-" I jerk my thumb over my shoulder at my fellow tribute. Jake something, I think it was. Jocob? Or Jack. Jace? Whatever.

Few in the audience have moved very far, intent on watching me talk for the escort. "Now seriously," I say. "Leave. Or I'll make a really disgusting noise into this microphone that'll make you cringe, like someone is chewing with their mouth open. I mean, ew, right?"

They start clearing out after that, but with the size of the crowd they still don't move very fast.

I look at the mess of people following my instructions with satisfaction.

"Well. That was interesting," someone says. It J-something, my fellow tribute. His eyes are laughing and so is the rest of his face.

"Yes, I do think it was," I respond.

He eyes my escort. Ours. I may have forgotten she belonged to him, too, for a moment. But maybe if she likes Jake/Jack/whats-his-face better than how much I know she likes me, her wrath won't be so wrath-y. Yes, her wrath of nail polish, over-padded bras and pure rainbowy sparkles.

J-something is talking. "I think she's started to defrost now. Maybe we should run and ditch her?"

This gives me an idea. "Oh yes, and hi-jack the train to the Capitol so we can leave her here!"

"Oh my gosh, yes!" he exclaims. "Best idea, ever!"

"We're not going to actually do it, though. Right?" I feel like I have to ask. I can't tell if he's insane/serious, or joking, like I was when I came up with the idea.

"Oh." His face falls. Yeah, definetly insane/serious.

But now that I've got this notion in my head? We could totally do it. I've slept by the trainyard and peered through enough windows that I know which buttons to press to get started. We can always crash the train and jump off at the other end, if we can't figure out how to stop it. And who knows; maybe what's-his-face will be some sort of train expert.

"So this might be a bit weird, but I'm a bit of a train expert," he admits suddenly. "We'd be totally safe." I almost smack my forehead but manage to - mostly - stop myself. It's a bit of a weird motion but I ignore how stupid I know it looks.

I snort. "We don't care about safety, do we? We both volunteered."

"C'mon, please?" he whines. Like I have to give him permission. Not that I mind that he thinks I'm in charge.

"Sure, whatever."

* * *

We snake through the halls of the justice building, already having left the escort behind instead of waiting for her to finish talking to our mayor. Jason - he told me his name after I continually avoided using it to get his attention - insists we take the elevator up to the main level, instead of the much more inconspicuous stairs.

I smile when it starts going up and up, since I've never been in an elevator before. But it ends all to soon.

"We only went up one floor," Jason states. "It wasn't that great, compared to, say, a twenty minute hover craft ride."

I gape at him. Hover craft ride? I donmt even pretend to be nonchalant. "How'd you manage to grt one of those?"

He finally smiles back. It's more of a smirk, but one that let's me know I'm still in charge. God, I've got to stop analyzing him like he's just another guy. We're stealing a train to the Capitol. Stealing _an entire train together. _He isn't going to backstab me. Sure, he'll stab me in the back, but he certainly won't backstab, at least not until we can't work together any more. But then I'll kill him and it won't be an issue. In the meantime now, we're happy friends.

"My dad's a train conductor," he says quietly. We are, after all, trying to sneak through the justice building. "Barely even lives at home, he works so much. The job pays next to nothing, but it comes with buckets of prestige, and apparently that's how he hooked us a ride. He gets them all the time when they ferry him around to where the trains are. He probably paid a month of his wages for it but we live fine of mother's pay, anyway."

"Wow," is all I can think of to say.

When we turn the next corner I launch myself silently backwards and pull him against the wall, praying they haven't seen us. "People," I hiss. "They'll see us!"

He laughs. "Have you never had a tour of this building? Those are the tribute's visiting quarters. The people are our families."

I glower. It's not like _I_ have anybody to recognize.

He leads around the corner this time and his face looks like mine when the woman there exclaims, "my BABY!" and runs to hug him.

"Hello, mother," he states dully.

* * *

So now that we've managed to escape, Jason, since he knows everything about machienery apparently, is going to hotwire the mayor's car for us to take to the trains station. This, of cours, will only work if the mayor has not driven away in it yet.

Jason stops. I crash into him. "What the f-"

"It's gone," he says simply.

I swear. Again.

"Why do you have to do that so much?"

"Ain't got nobody to tell me not to," I say with a devilish grin. "Any other cars, or are we walking?"

"Probably walking, unless there happens to be a car somebody will miss just right on the roadside." Which there never is.

Except now. You can't see it from the steps, but we're down, out the back lf the Justice Building, and the Capitol representatives are just rounding the corner, aways away from their vehicle. They're all tense, at out absense I'll bet, and escort is most worried looking, but they haven't seen us yet.  
Jason turns to me. He's got that same devilish grin now, too. I ask him, "how fast can you start that car?"

In answer, he takes off. (He's fast, and I'll have to watch him for it.) Remember we're still on the steps, so he laughs at the thrill when he jumps off and flies into a roll on the ground to keep running. I'm right behind him, doing the same quick acrobatics in order to not break both my legs and then yanking my door open on the car.

I'm seated and Jason's got the hood up and then back down in about two seconds. He fumbles with the handle to the driver's door and I yank it open - normally I'm not so nice but the people who own this car are bolting it across the dirt lot, heading straight for us.

"Step on it!" I yell although I don't know where he should step. Musta heard it somehwere; I haven't ever been in a car, either.

He does, on the strange pedals down below that make this thing go. Unexpectedly we shoot back and even though I'm expecting motion, it's not the right direction and I bang my head on the dashboard. But I ignore it because we did this and the escort is the only one left running after us and even she's left in our dust - litterally - and we're going so fast I just can't hold the giggles in. They burst forth like a waterfall and even when I put my hand in my mouth I just can't stop and I nearly choke on my own hand.

Jason's laughing too, but not nearly so hard. I guess he's done this before.

* * *

I've nearly made myself quiet by the time we're at the train station. We park a little down the road and sneak in around the back, to avoid reporters, journalists, photagraphers, and everybody else who's there to document every time we blink.

Once we're where the train is (but on the opposite side from the media crowd) we hunt for a way in. None of the carriage doors are open to us and even the ones between carriages that we have to climb up to are locked. I suppose the open door or doors will be on the other side and say so.

Jason agrees. But certainly we aren't going over to that side; we'll be seen. Duh. But at least we don't need to rush. The escort, driver, mentors, nor anybody else isn't going to be here in a hurry without their car. No one stays in the train; they all have to attend the Reaping.

"Anything on the roof?" I ask.

"Oh! Skylights. We can break one and drop through." He starts scrambling up right away, although I can tell climbing isn't his strong point.

"Spread yourself out," I tell him on my way up. In less than a second, I'm on the roof. I wait to smash a skylight until he's here. Might be alarms or something, and this is his area.

He makes it up panting and I pester him with questions until he's caught his breath I think it's fine for me to break the skylight myself.

"Wait!" he calls, a little to loud considering the crowd waiting for us on one side of the train that doesn't know we're already here and sitting on it's roof.

I freeze. "What!"

He hesitates. "I mean, it's fine, it's just..."

"Spit it out."

"You might cut yourself. And I..."

I sigh exasperatedly and kick through it. He's right, and I do get a cutesy little surface scratch. He knocks in some more glass before coming in himself and it crushes and tinkles under his otherwise soft landing.

I wait for him to say something, like maybe what we do now.

"Great, we're in," he says. "You want to clean up that glass maybe? I'll go and get us going."  
I look at him funny. "Isn't it going to take a while to get the train started? You don't need keys or something?"

He laughs, but it isn't mean. Really, he's kind of soft. "Trains like this? They're all button push starts. If you're in, it's assumed you're aloud to be there."

I don't want to clean up the glass. It's not my train. Why do I care? Plus, there's a pretty big loop hole in his whole speech.

"How exactly are you planning on getting to the front?" I watch him open his mouth, falter, and then his face fall. He can't go compartment to compartment by doors; he'll be seen.

Another devilish smile of mine. "I guess I'll be the one climbing over all the coaches in order to not be seen, then!"

But apparently, he needs to come despite it being "just a push start."

He's really not great at this whole climbing thing but I avoid telling him so. We need to get going. We should've broken into the engine car first, stupid us. But after we're out of our first car, (pulling him up after me, what a nightmare) it's easier, and we slink along the top and I break the window to our new car and drop down.

He drops down too fast after me though, knocking me over and squashes me. "Just couldn't wait, could you," I say dryly. He reddens. I'm not hurt and I still stand fine, but I'm going to have a foot shaped bruise on that shoulder for a while. But I suppose the Capitol will fix it before the Games. "You're supposed to wait to attack me until we're wanted to kill each other."

He tries to ignore me. He also seems to be exactly the expert he made himself out as when he talked on the Reping stage. He works over many more buttons than I ever saw through a train's window. Just a push start, my ass.

We start moving and I can hear the dull babble outside change to panic. Why the eff is the train rolling away, right?

"No, **STOP THEM**!" someone shreiks in a squeaky, very Capitol _escort_ accent. That'd be Miss Balonga or whatever, wanting her car and now her train back, too.

"One last thing," says Jason, finally finished. He gestures gracefully for me to tug on an ornate wooden handled chain hanging from above. I know what this is.

We crowd the window so everyone, shocked as they are, can see us. Espescially me, with my arm pulled back yanking the whistle that probably kills their ears considering how close by as they are.  
I can't resist banging a few times and finalky breaking the much stronger window here with the closest heavy thing: a fire extinguisher.

As if one person, the two of us tributes yell gleefully out the open (broken) window, "_SUCKERS_!" We laugh all the way down the track until we can't see District One anymore.


End file.
